Just another part of the game
by Megaphone.Kills.You
Summary: The leaders of Senju and Uchiha play a dangerous game that relies on Hashirama's curiosity and Madara's perfect unpredictability and perhaps the latter's seduction skills.


**My first take at HashiMada, a ship that I used to dislike, but I found myself liking it lately... It's odd. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this and a bit of feedback would be most appreciated! **

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If there is one image nowadays that makes Hashirama Senju uneasy, it's Madara Uchiha wearing the hitai'ate of Konohagakure. This simple metal plate with an emblem resembling a leaf, the eponym of the young village, carved into it distorts the appearance of that man beyond recognition. It's a shackle with the sign of the village he despises and it just doesn't fit to see someone as proud as Madara to wear a symbol of his own 'slavery'. It makes it appear as if the beast had been tamed and that is what unsettles Hashirama so much.

They had collided in countless battles ever since they were old enough to fight on the larger fields. Usually enemies aren't meant to meet more than once, but those two just happen to be special. Before and during the battles they hardly ever exchanged enough words to form a conversation in the eyes of mere civilians. A shinobi knows that ninja communicate through the clash of their weapons; they can read one another by the way they move and fight to the death. And if Hashirama ever learned something about Madara in each strife they had, it's that the black-haired man is _unpredictable_.

One can never tell which side of Madara will prevail and guide his next move. Will his cold, calculating side win out or will his more feral side run wild? It is an endless guessing game with him and that's what makes it so hard to believe that he intends to stay tamed. (Hashirama isn't that naïve, thank you very much.)  
Yet...that's what makes it strangely...exciting.

Madara's volatile nature keeps their game entertaining, if one can call it that. A game of power. Oh how much Hashirama wants to crush his opponent and oh how much Madara would love to do that to his rival first. And somehow they keep a balance that way, a balance that could destabilize any given moment.

(Whenever the leader of the Senju thinks about it, he immediately feels like he's doing something he shouldn't. It's their dirty little secret but he can't tell why it would be.)

Sometimes Hashirama gets the impression that Madara _knows_. Why else would he act like this?

Whenever they meet, that blasted Uchiha stands a little too close, whenever they happen to touch he lingers a second too long, whenever they speak in private his voice is a little too sultry and whenever he walks away from his enemy his hips sway a little too much (not that Hashirama notices or anything).

That bastard. He knows exactly what he is doing and that's where calculation and his playful side come together in a dangerous union. Nevermind if it's crude provocation, teasing, it's a threat to their balance.

Hashirama groans in frustration and brushes long dark brown tresses behind his ear. This catches Mito's attention and she fixes him with a worried look instead of asking what is wrong. She is aware that if it was something important or that he wanted to share, he would tell her without her prompting him to. And hell, Mito is perhaps one of the last people he would inform of his predicament, next to Tobirama of course.

Whatever this something is that Madara is trying to build up between them, there are no feelings involved, so he shouldn't feel this guilty. It's just plain...physical attraction. Both their hearts belong to someone else already (the Senju's to his Uzumaki wife and the Uchiha's to a woman long dead) but that alone would never stop Mr Over-Ambitious from using his body as a weapon in every possible way. Though...would Madara go that far? Would he truly seduce the Hokage of Konoha and sleep with him, just to gain an advantage, to tip the scale to his favor? There's no way of knowing like this, they'd have to get that far first...

Thinking (fantasizing) about this is just another part of the game, Hashirama tells himself and still can't stop himself from swallowing. His throat is rather dry all of a sudden. It seems as if Madara would win this round. With his blunt provocation and suggestive smirk on that handsome face he will win that round and afterwards he might be back to normal or perhaps not. As Hashirama had observed earlier, Madara is entirely unpredictable.

That stupid plate of metal around his forehead is the ultimate sign of the Uchiha's opaqueness, of the enticing and at the same time worrying danger he poses.

So Hashirama's urge to rip his forehead protector off was only natural.


End file.
